THE METAMORPHOSIS OF ROCKY KANAGA BY KARI HUSKEY
If you have been in the Oklahoma City area for any time at all, you have undoubtedly heard the name Rocky Kanaga. With his mellow radiant voice and laid-back demeanor, he has blazed an impressive musical trail through this area for 20 years. As with any great story, Rocky’s began when he was 13 after he bought a snare drum at a neighborhood garage sale. He used white 5-gallon buckets as his toms and what he described as “a little wire thing as his symbol putting it on a caulking gun” and that was his drum set. Seeing how much he loved playing, his parents surprised him one Christmas with a trap set, and the inevitable musical road was laid out in front of him. Before long, he was playing with his friends Blake Lennon and Josh Christian in one of their parents’ garages. The trio belted out Nirvana, Offspring and Metallica and rocked the pants off anyone in the garage listening to them! Rocky remembers “It was the best time in my life musically speaking.” They were just playing in the garage, but to them they were some badass rockstars! Around the age of 22, Rocky went to his first Dave Matthews concert. He went there as a drummer and then after seeing Dave play, he was like “forget the drums… I want to learn the guitar!” He loved Dave Matthews message…his songs are a lot about dying, but in the meantime, you should eat, drink and be merry because you are not promised tomorrow. This is when Rocky realized that songs can be sad and still be an uplifting force. After the concert, Rocky went to the store and bought a VHS tape (yes, VHS lol) of Dave Matthews playing live. He would slow it down and watch Dave’s fingers and would count the frets. Basically, Dave Matthews taught him how to play and it is and there is no doubt that if you ask for any Dave Matthews song, Rocky can play it! And rather well too! Over the years as Rocky made his way playing gigs around the Oklahoma City and Norman area, he found himself falling victim to the party atmosphere in which musicians can be deeply rooted. Rocky has now been sober for 3 years and admits that when he watches Facebook memories of his 18
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shows, he is horrified to see how he was playing when he was drinking. He tried to stop but he was to the point that his withdrawals were horrific. The first thing that he had to do in the morning to feel better was to take a drink because his hands were shaking so badly. “It got to the point where I was hearing evil voices, like they were telling me, you know how to end your life. Just go…you know where the guns are and whatever.” Rocky recalls, “I was at my parents’ house, and they didn’t know what was wrong. I was talking crazy; I was seeing and hearing things. It was real to me but no one else could see it.” That is when his mom took him to the emergency room. “I remember I was shaking and hearing voices. I stood up and tried to calm myself down and that is the last thing I remember. I just fell face first and like, had a huge blackout and woke up in the ICU four or five days later.” Doctors would come in and out every day and ask him to hold his hand up to see how bad the shaking was. “This one nurse or doctor, I don’t know if she was going to school or what, one day came back in and asked if I was going to stop drinking. I said I don’t know if I want to… She looked at me in the eyes and said you are going to die, she was like, your body can’t take one more of these withdrawals and you are going to die. So, I was like do I want to live or die? I looked at her and said I want to live. I wish I could go back and find her after all these years to say thank you for saving my life.” All things are looking bright now for Rocky, and he is not
